Signs Of Elections In Universities To Gear Up Soon

In all public universities of the country, this week is expected to officially start the campaign for the election of the deans and rector. This campaign is said to continue until the end of February. It is in the air once again with anticipation and excitement. The Jawaharlal Nehru University students are gearing up to hold their student's Union Election after a gap of more than three years, during which the elections had stood banned.

Students politics has always been a lunch pad for a host of National Level Politicians from Communists Party of India (Marxist) leaders like Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury to Nationalist Congress Party leader D.P.Tripathi, all of who were Jawaharlal Nehru University Student's Union Presidents.

In 2008, it was disagreement between students and some Lyngdoh Committee recommendations which led to the ban on Elections by the Supreme Court. When the Supreme court in a judgment dated December 8, 2011 recognized the “right to exercise the vitally important liberty of the students to choose their representative through election”. Finally the court sought to “Strike a balance” between the sprit of the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations in 2006, and extended some relaxations for, to conduct JNUSU election.

The students are hoping to conduct elections by January end or in the beginning of February. Though the absence of student's union has been sorely felt by large sections of the student community. The last president of JNUSU who is prior to the ban Mr.Sandeep Singh says “A major achievement of the union has been to usher in a democratic decision-making process in which all the constituents of the University including the students, teachers and karamcharis participate. In the absence of the union, the grammar of the functioning of the university has changed and students have been sidelined from the decision making process”.

Also students of Allahabad University too are hoping for the revival of their students union. A Ph.D scholar at the university, Vishwadeepak Tripathi recalls that the Allahabad University students union elections were banned when a trial of violence, including a candidates murder, marred the 205 elections. He says “Money and muscle power have often figured in our student elections. Students are keen on elections only if it does not become a platform for bad elements and strongmen. Some students fear that if the union is not revived by the time of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, interest might fade and students will have to renew their efforts”.

Figuring it up moderately, former JNU Vice-chancellor and current south Asian University president Prof.G.K.Chadha says as “Student Unions present the best organized way of building understanding between the students and the administration”. The specific name lists are to be revealed after some days, when they will receive the official paperwork from the Ministry of Education for the launch of the Campaign.